I'm just looking through Steven Price's wonderful book Media Minefield and here's a key point in the advent that you have to prove truth to avoid being found to have defamed someone.

If you've promised your source confidentiality, then they may not want to back you up publicly. One way around this is to try to get the source to agree at the outset to surrender confidentiality if the matter ever goes to court.

I suspect that if a contract has been entered into between two parties, with full disclosure of an action on the part of one of the parties, which if brought to public attention might damage the reputation of the other party, then unilateral termination of said contract without full payout might be quite difficult.

am i a total Pollyanna for hoping that people are able to be rehabilitated?

:( ........apparently in this world of understanding and compassion, anti death penalty, prison systems don't work because it a punishment, (not a remedy), war on drugs is a war on personal freedom, mental health is a real issue and should not be marginalised and shamed, etc etc....... pollyanna maybe

looks like there's gonna be a lynchin', stand back so's you don't get run over by the posse

Surely a big problem for TVNZ is that they'll have to start tailoring their news hour to avoid squirm-inducing situations like Simon Dallow crossing straight from a report on the Govt's new anti-violence campaign to "And now here's Tony with the Sport ... how about them All Blacks?" Or having him front a story on a sportsman charged with some violence incident (as happens all too often). Just what do they do - run such stories and know a great many viewers are sitting there thinking "I wonder how Tony's feeling right now?", or drop it to avoid the problem. In which case it is the presenter setting the news agenda - surely untenable?

I am staggered at the extent of condemnation expressed by the responses to this blog. There is so much hate and contempt expressed for an issue when so little is known for fact. Speculation is based on media reports feeding opinions. Would a single blow be the same as a "prolonged vicious beating"? We do not know. Was it true that the "compensation" (more than any restitution) was a long time after the event rather than a condition of medical treatment as some of you suggest. I am deeply concerned at the mob thirst for punishment expressed on these pages and feel discouraged that the usual fairness in the discussions on PA have been undermined. The cartoon in the Herald says it all for me. (The judge can't get his place back on the bench because the Media has taken over!) I would add a lynch mob mentality!

When Veitch came out with the Serena Williams slur, I was so annoyed, i sent an email to his TVNZ email address advising him to read about Jackie Robinson, the first black professional baseball player to player Major League baseball.

There surely can't be any question about what his employers do next. Clint Brown was sacked for an offence that, while despicable, was nowhere near as abhorrent as this. To keep Veitch on would be to condone domestic violence. His dismissal is a matter of when not if. Can't see how he could keep living in the goldfish bowl that is NZ after this.

Morally 100% correct.... but legally? Employment law may not let them do that, if they were already aware of the issue... This is why so many of us want to know WHEN his employers became aware....

It was part of the problem of getting rid of Clint Rickards, remember.

Ian, a single blow is never going to produce the injuries described and not denied. The intersection of extreme personal violence and ingrained sports-jock culture is bound to produce strong feelings in any forum. The discussion here is very reasonable compared with most others.

Redemption is possible - but it will take more than a stage-managed apology a couple of years after the fact, and it will involve stuff that as Craig noted earlier is out of the public eye.

There surely can't be any question about what his employers do next. Clint Brown was sacked for an offence that, while despicable, was nowhere near as abhorrent as this. To keep Veitch on would be to condone domestic violence. His dismissal is a matter of when not if. Can't see how he could keep living in the goldfish bowl that is NZ after this.

Morally 100% correct.... but legally? Employment law may not let them do that, if they were already aware of the issue... This is why so many of us want to know WHEN his employers became aware....

It was part of the problem of getting rid of Clint Rickards, remember.

Fletcher, I think it was mentioned earlier that media personalities generally have written into their contracts something around bringing their employers' reputation into disrepute by association. Hence Clint Brown's dismissal, Darren McDonald etc. So legally, both TVNZ and Radio Live would be well within their rights to give him the boot (pun not intended).

Does the fact that these might mitigate a bad assualt seem bad? Contrast the alternative:

I was angry because I'd lost my job, was having financial difficulties, and hadn't slept for more than a couple hours a night for a week and just let fly

vs.

I'd just gotten a promotion at work and felt like celebrating.

Mitigating factors aren't there to excuse you. We've got defences for that, but they are they to point out - when considering sentencing - yes this was bad, but it wasn't as bad as it would have been in other circumstances.